A woman's boss was not happy to find one of his employees that had asked for a sick leave appeared on TV during the semi-final match among the cheering spectators. It was Nina Farooqi's unlucky day as she was fired the following day immediately.
The 37-year-old worked at Composite Prime, a company that provides decking and cladding services located in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
She works as the digital content producer and called in sick to catch a train during lunchtime.
The faces of her and her friend were zoomed in by the TV camera and shown worldwide when England made their first goal. On top of that, they also appeared on TV presenter Stacey Dooley's Instagram story.
The director of the company regrettably said that she left them "no choice" but to sack her. Nina received news of her termination at 6 am through a call from her boss while on her way back.
The director shared that they're giving their short-staffed workers Monday morning off for the evening's final.
Charles Taylor, the director, told DailyMail, "It's an exciting time for everyone in England, and given the opportunity, we would have encouraged attendance to such an important football match."
"Unfortunately on this occasion, our employee lied, taking one day off sick to attend the football match on Wednesday 7 July."
He explained that it was a breach of her contract, and they truly value the honesty and integrity of their workers who do not take advantage of their policies.
Nina reveals that it was a last-minute from her friend and she'd "do it all over again."
She told Daily Telegraph, "They said they'd seen I'd been at the game, and I was honest about why I did it. But I didn't get any sympathy at all, and they said that's it. That's their call and the consequence of what I did."
Nina admits that there was a bit of regret from losing her job, but football was her passion and her day job was to support her hobby as a photographer and video producer for the men's game club and the Women's Super League.
There were over 60,000 fans in the stadium and she didn't imagine her face would be seen so clearly.
PA
She realized her face was displayed on the screen across the world during half-time when she checked her phone. Sharing about how she felt mixed emotions from losing her job, but able to attend the match that day, Nina recalled, "This hasn't come around since 1996; I vividly remember crying on my mum's sofa when Gareth Southgate missed his penalty, and the football fan in me just couldn't do it."They were also caught on Stacey Dooley's Instagram Story in the midst of excitement.
Sacked, but Nina says that her friends from women's football community are lining up to give her freelance work.
